Too often we say an election is historically significant but, in the case of Queensland’s state poll this Saturday, the Sunshine State really is at a crossroads.
If the Liberal-National party wins office (as all public opinion polls over the past two years have indicated), it will be the conservatives’ first election victory from the opposition benches in 13 years, and just the second in 67 years.
That alone underscores the hegemonic nature of Queensland politics where governments can reign for decades. It’s therefore little wonder that Labor – often endowed with popular leaders, a strong organisational substructure and regional-friendly infrastructure policy – should have governed Queensland for 30 of the past 35 years, and for 70 of the past 110.
And while the looming defeat for the Labor government – looking tired after three terms, and now confronting “youth crime”, the cost-of-living, ambulance “ramping”, housing shortages and confusion over Olympic Games infrastructure – this campaign has nonetheless produced a number of remarkable phenomena.
First, with youth crime (especially in north Queensland) dominating the political narrative, we’ve not seen a “law and order” campaign since the 1980s when National party premier Joh Bjelke-Petersen ruled with an iron rod. Anecdotally, it appears voters are more concerned with locking up youth offenders than with cost-of-living relief.
Second, despite the LNP gaining enormous traction over youth crime, the opposition has rolled itself into arguably the smallest policy target seen in a generation. While offering voter-friendly aspirations to improve the lot of Queenslanders in its first 100 days, the LNP has been so devoid of costed detail that even conservative stakeholders have voiced concern.
Perhaps it’s been Labor’s pungent attacks on the LNP and its moderate leader, David Crisafulli, for that lack of detail that has produced a third remarkable development: a significant closing of the public opinion gap in the campaign’s final days.
Where a June-September Resolve Strategic poll pegged Labor’s primary vote as low as 23%, and the LNP’s after-preference vote as high as 58.5% (enough for Crisafulli to win 65 of the parliament’s 93 seats), Resolve Strategic this week found Labor recovering to 32%, the LNP falling to 40% (with the Greens on 11, One Nation on 9, Katter on 2 and other on 6) for an after-preference split of 53 to 47 in the LNP’s favour – a swing of 6% that would see the LNP just squeak into majority government.
Just as remarkable is the recovery in voters’ regard for the premier, Steven Miles – a softly spoken, self-confessed “introverted” gym-junkie now presenting as a “daggy dad” – whom Resolve Strategic now rates as behind as preferred premier on 37% to Crisafulli’s 39%. Just months ago, Resolve Strategic found Miles, on 27%, trailing Crisafulli on 40%. Indeed, so robust has Miles’s campaign been there’s speculation he might stay on as opposition leader after Saturday.
Such revivals underscore the power of a well-oiled campaign – as Labor’s has been, especially via social media – to complement such election sweeteners as 50c public transport fares and free lunches for all state primary schoolchildren.
But Labor’s recovery also hinges on the question of the LNP potentially unwinding the state’s popular abortion laws. Katter’s Australian party recently pledged to introduce a private member’s bill to repeal the 2018 legislation. It’s a minor party move that would not ordinarily make headlines, except for the fact all but three of the LNP’s then-parliamentary party, including Crisafulli and his deputy, Jarrod Bleijie, voted against removing abortion from the state’s criminal code.
Despite Crisafulli promising “no change” to abortion laws, questions are being asked of the LNP leader’s ability quell a potential post-election rebellion among the party’s conservative majority.
A YouGov poll published last weekend, also suggesting a recovery for Miles, indicates Labor’s primary vote, at 38%, is ahead of the LNP’s 34% across Brisbane. There’s little doubt fears over a potential repeal of abortion (and voluntary assisted dying) laws have dampened Crisafulli’s appeal among moderate Brisbanites.
And therein lies the story of this election. Analysts have long described the Sunshine State as not one but of two Queenslands: Brisbane versus “the bush”, or the south-east versus “the rest”. (My research has found at least six Queenslands, with Brisbane’s satellite cities behaving more like the regions than Brisbane’s suburbs).
It’s therefore difficult but not impossible to win in Queensland with support in one half of the state but not the other. But governing confidently for four years is even more difficult, and virtually impossible to win subsequent terms in a state boasting two very distinct political cultures without cross-regional support.
If the LNP just falls over the line this Saturday, its inexperienced frontbench may well find government more challenging than anticipated, especially if voters expect crime, inflation, hospitals and housing to be fixed after 100 days.
The prospect of yet another single-term conservative government merely interrupting an ongoing Queensland Labor hegemony is therefore far from impossible.
Dr Paul Williams is an associate professor of politics and journalism at Griffith University in Brisbane
